COMMITTEE SEEKS TO BAN PADDLING

BOCA RATON -- A local contingent of civic and business people is taking aim at corporal punishment in schools.

While spanking and paddling students is banned in Broward and Palm Beach County schools, the group wants to make sure it does not occur elsewhere in the state.

The newly established Florida Committee to Abolish Corporal Punishment in Schools wants the state Legislature to outlaw corporal punishment.

"Schools inadvertently have perpetuated abuse to children by practicing corporal punishment and there should be a law passed prohibiting corporal punishment," said School Board member Arthur Anderson, co-chairman of the group, during an announcement at Florida Atlantic University.

Twenty-three states have outlawed corporal punishment, Anderson said, but Florida does not prohibit it.

He said there are counties in the northern part of the state that use hitting as discipline.

According to a survey by the Department of Education during the 1990-91 school year, 25,281 Florida students been hit.

George LaBelle, owner of a Delray Beach printing shop, whose company prints relocation pamphlets, said the No. 1 question that people ask when they move to the area is about the quality of the school s.

LaBelle includes in the pamphlets that corporal punishment is legal in the state.